This is a modified version of one of the most favorite Christmas noche buena dessert in the Philippines. The recipe is basically modified for those transplanted Filipinos whose only coconuts they can find comes in a can.

Ingredients:

• 1 can coconut milk (400 ml)
• 1/2 c water
• 1 1/2 c brown sugar
• 1 1/2 c sweet rice
• evaporated milk (optional)

Procedure:

1. Get the sweet rice cooking in a rice cooker.
2. Mix the coconut milk, water, and brown sugar in a sauce pan.
3. Heat the sauce pan with all the mixed ingredients until all the water has evaporated and it is caramelized. This is now called the “latik”. You have to keep stirring otherwise it will overflow and you’ll create a mess and your wife will kick you out of the kitchen. It will take a long time for the solution to become caramelized (latik), so you better not be doing something else. Now here’s the secret trick. To determine the proper consistency of the latik, take a glass of water from the faucet. Drop (just a single drop) of the solution you’re stirring into the glass of water. If you see that the “latik” settled to the bottom in whole (coagulated), then the latik is done and deserved to be called a “latik”.
4. Mixed the cooked sweet rice and the latik in a bowl. You have to do this little by little to coat every grain of rice with the latik. What I do is take a little bit of rice, pour a little bit of latik, and mix them together very well. Put it aside in a baking pan, and repeat until you finish all the rice. Don’t worry if you end up with extra latik, you can also eat your biko, while drinking latik on the side.
5. Once you have all the rice coated with the latik in a baking pan, you can optionally coat the top with some evaporated milk and bake it at 325 degrees for 15 minutes or until the milk forms a crust at the top.

There you have it. Enjoy your biko either with Coke or tea. Merry Christmas!